Pages

Syndicate

Meta

Pete Peeters came within a game (and a missed offside call) of doing it in 1980.Five years later Pelle Lindbergh won one game in the finals but ultimately lost to the Oilers.Ron Hextall almost did it in 1987 after being down three games to one against the Oilers and then fell short against the Red Wings ten years later.And this year Martin Biron has led an unexpected run by the Flyers to the Conference Final.But in the 40 years of franchise history, Bernie Parent remains the only Flyers goalie to win the Stanley Cup.

Parent still lives in the Philadelphia area and has embraced his role at the Godfather of Flyers goalies. He proudly watches each successive generation of goalies try to duplicate his success and likes what he sees this year.“Biron is playing well… he is seeing the puck in slow motion”.What Parent likes most about Biron is his ability to bounce back.“Just because he has a bad game or a bad stretch, he doesn’t question himself as a goalie”.

Parent certainly know of what he speaks.After returning from the WHA Philadelphia Blazers back to the NHL’s Flyers he led the Broad Street Bullies to back-to-back Cups in 1974 and ’75.Parent was such a dominant force for the Flyers that he also won the Vezina and the Conn Smythe trophies both those years as well (Mario Lemieux is the only other player to win the Conn Smythe back-to-back).I was only five years old when the Flyers won their first Cup so I don’t remember seeing Parent play but my dad has told me a number of times that Parent meant more to the Flyers than Ken Dryden ever meant to the Canadiens’ run of four Cups.

Will Biron reach the pinnacle that eluded so many other great Flyer goalies?He seems to have the demeanor for it.Click here to read a good article in Philly.com about the history of Philadelphia goalies.There are some interesting comments from Hextall about the amount of credit he received for the Flyers run in ’87 as well as some observations from current San Jose Shark Brian Boucher that prove the Flyers goalies are all part of the same brotherhood.